Colon cleansing is a waste of time, money and effort

A friend of mine recently asked what I thought of Evercleanse, the colon cleansing product-du-jour that’s being aggressively marketed to help you: “Lose the Waste. Lose the Weight.” I told him that all colon cleansing products are basically the same; namely, scams. The reason is that colon cleansing is wholly unnecessary and a complete waste of time, money and effort. Regardless of marketing hype, regardless of ingredients, regardless of method, regardless of testimonials, colon cleansing is quite purely and simply medical quackery. The one exception to this is when it’s prescribed medically as in preparation for an examination such as colonoscopy.

It is quite amazing how many websites there are devoted to colon cleansing and how many such products are being offered for sale. As a long-time opponent of the Master Cleanse regimen I’m somewhat familiar with this marketplace, but even I was surprised by the sheer number of different products, which include Colonix, Perfect Cleanse, Bowtrol, Dual Action Cleanse, Almighty Cleanse, Colpurin, Regulux, Oxy-Powder, Blessed Herbs, and the winner for best product name: ColonBlow, just to name a few. What’s also amazing is all the alleged “review” sites there are each claiming to have the definitive word on why one particular product is better than all the rest. My guess is that these so-called reviews are nothing more than marketing ploys in disguise because there are so many and they each recommend a different product.

So why do I say that colon cleansing is unnecessary? The main reason is that the colon is a continuously self-cleaning system. Everyone knows that food goes in at the top of the GI tract and the leftover waste material quite naturally comes out the other end. What colon cleansing hucksters want you to believe, however, is that your colon is like a septic tank where waste is held until it is pumped out and that while it is being held it rots filling you with toxins and other noxious material. Some want you to believe that waste material sticks to and encrusts the sides of the colon, which must essentially be Roto-Rootered to rid you of both waste and weight. But anyone who has actually studied how the GI tract works knows that this is just plain wrong, that material can’t and doesn’t build up over time and that the colon continuously cleans itself as food and waste move through and out of it.

For example, I used to be a pathologist and I personally performed over 1000 autopsies (and witnessed many thousands of others), which means that I got to look inside the intestines of many people, a lot of whom were healthy until they met with some tragic and untimely fatal event (I was a medical examiner specializing in forensic pathology). So I know from first-hand experience that people are not loaded with toxic residue, not carrying excess pounds of colonic waste and not encrusted with caked-on stool that’s hard to remove. In fact, I’d guesstimate that over 99 percent of physicians would agree with me that cleansing is unnecessary because they know the colon cleans itself. Who do you think is to be believed? Medical doctors who’ve actually studied and know first-hand how the colon works in health and disease, or marketers who are selling you a product? If you chose marketers, all I can say is caveat emptor (let the buyer beware).

Here’s what the Mayo Clinic has to say about colon cleansing: “It’s unnecessary. Your colon doesn’t require enemas or special diets or pills to eliminate waste material and bacteria. It does this naturally on its own.” And here’s a quote from an article on the Seattle-based Swedish Medical Center’s web site: “Things don’t crust over” in your colon, says Robert Russell, MD, a gastroenterologist at the Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston. “The business about putrefaction is all baloney. There are not pieces of food hanging around in there getting old.”

Here’s another thing about how the colon works. All the nutrients from the food you eat are absorbed in the small intestine before the waste reaches the colon. The primary thing that happens in the colon is reabsorption of water as the stool progressively gets firmer prior to elimination. This is important because many colon cleansers falsely claim that it can help with weight loss since you would eliminate more and retain less foodstuff. But since the nutrients have already been absorbed before the colon, the only thing you lose more of is water. So if constipation is your concern, you can help prevent it without colon cleansing by drinking more water and eating a fiber-rich diet.

Speaking of fiber, remember Evercleanse, the product I mentioned earlier? Its marketers claim it will help you “Lose the Waste. Lose the Weight.” Not true. Taking a fiber-based laxative product like Evercleanse (which is what most colon cleanse products are) will likely make your stools softer and more frequent, but it won’t eliminate toxic accumulation that wasn’t there to begin with and it won’t help you lose weight because the colon is unrelated to weight gain or loss.

The Evercleanse web site does have this interesting statement: “Consuming the typical North American diet of processed, refined, high fat, high sugar and low fiber foods over the years has resulted in making us feel sick, bloated, tired, overweight and just plain unhealthy.” But while this may be true, the solution is not colon cleansing; rather, the solution is diet change! Stop over-eating highly processed refined foods that are high in fat and sugar and low in fiber and start eating more fresh foods, including fresh fruits and vegetables, beans and whole grains and your colon will take care of itself. What I mean is that you don’t need to spend all that time, money and effort doing a colon cleanse before you change your diet. Just change your diet. But either way, with or without dietary change, colon cleansing is just unnecessary.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ed Zimney, MD

Ed is a physician with more than 30 years of experience. He’s held positions in drug advertising review, drug safety surveillance, medical information and marketing with several bio/pharmaceutical companies.